The Bible…#borrriiiinnnggg

As a young girl, my mother, joined by her sisters, always took their children (yes, little, childish Mary Morrow included) to church on Sunday mornings. Upon arrival at our traditional Methodist church, we were greeted by the same people, on the same pew (second row from the back), and then sat together…all twelve of us. Growing up, I always took Christianity as something that was repetitive, boring, and well…something that existed to the extent of singing these lyrics at Vacation Bible school.

“Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

Once I was eleven or twelve, I deemed Christianity as a stagnant process of spiritual refinement and the Bible to be a book full of Godly wisdoms and parables that was incredibly difficult to read at times. This morning, that all changed. Today, I opened up my Bible and read part of the book of Esther, a story written about a young, Jewish girl from the countryside of Susa, a city located 150 miles north of the Persian Gulf (which is now in ruins). This young girl, along with every other virgin girl in the Persian empire, was ripped from her home and put through one year of beauty treatments by the attendants of the kingdom’s palace to make her “fit” to be a queen. Over all of the young, virgin girls in the Persian empire, Esther was favored by the king of Persia, King Xerxes, despite her Jewish heritage and peasant upbringing. King Xerxes and Esther were wed and she became queen over Persia. Shortly after her reign was initiated, a threat was put over all of the Jewish people in Persia by a man of high power in the kingdom named Haman.

“Letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces telling the officials to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jewish people—young and old, women and children—and plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.” Esther 3:13

This is a problem…Queen Esther is Jewish.

So that I do not write an entire essay, allow me to spoil the ending for you: Through Esther’s will to fight and support from her father figure, Mordecai, the man who raised her, she successfully put down this 486 BC  Hitler and saved all of the Jews in Persia from being put to death in a mass killing. The story of Esther’s life is one prime example of the many riveting stories of people in the Bible that had many of the same world experiences as us and fell subject to many of the same evils in this world as we do. Hate me or not, but many of these stories are better than reading a Nicholas Sparks novel. Check out the story of Samson, a yolked man who got his strength from his dreads. Let me know what you think!

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+16

Flamboyance is Errywhere: Response to Your Word, Chadwick

First off, I love the formality of your blog, although it is on a very “racy” topic. In fact, the way in which you present your topic makes your blog all the more amusing. The Key and Peele video happened to be my favorite because it plays on the tendency for the African-American culture to have longer names, but the names presented of the different players are very unrealistic, for example, “Xmus Jaxon Flaxon-Waxon” and the other names that were pronounced by the ESPN-like news show. This is definitely racism as it mocks the long, syllable-full names that African American women tend to choose for their children. Also, the caucasian football reporters call the African American football players “flamboyant” which describes a person tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness. Flamboyance is not only in talented, African American athletes. It is displayed in every race, nationality, religion, and age. The very well known, Scott Disick, is one example of a man who is “flamboyant”. Looking from the outside, it seems as if he places his confidence in his physical appearance, wealth, women, and running million dollar businesses and managing the show, “Keeping Up With The Kardashians”. Sadly enough, these are the only things occupying this man’s life and running his identity.

http://heavy.com/entertainment/2015/03/scott-disick-job-net-worth-work-do-for-a-living/

 

Response to Alex: Girl was dat holy rice?

Alex, this post is interesting to me because I have also come into contact with the different disciplinary actions taken by the parents of my friends who are of different races. That being said, I, too, think there exists stereotypes involving discipline by African-American parents versus Caucasian-American parents.

Parents of all races at some point in time will come into contact with the need to discipline their child. Discipline is imperative in order to correct a child whenever they “act a fool” so that later in life, they will be able to discern right from wrong. As a young child, I was never hit, slapped, whipped, or flogged, for discipline when I would act up, nor was I sent to kneel over rice and pray. Instead, my mother would ask me open ended questions when I misbehaved so that I personally could come to the conclusion that I had done something wrong and correct myself. The following video is an example of what I believe to be a responsible mother who fills the stereotype that African-American mothers typically use hitting and yelling as a way of disciplining their children. Although I do not agree with hitting your children for discipline, this mother uses this action well to successfully stop her son’s illegal and ruthless behavior during the riots in Baltimore earlier this year. By her intervening in this situation and DISCIPLING her son using force, she might be the reason many people walked away from the riots alive and uninjured. You go Incredi-mom! Check this out.

Hello world!

…or does not like Jimmy Fallon

So I understand, Dr. Herron, you do not like the humor or shall I say non-humor of Jimmy Fallon. Well sir, I am here to introduce to you Fallon’s genius tactic of cracking jokes using the act of writing a thank you note (which we all find arduous) to expand his audience by creating a common ground among all personas from computer nerds, to cat owners, to the parents of graduating high school seniors, to church goers. In order to make this video more bearable to some of you anti-Fallon friends, please fast forward in this clip of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to two minutes and fifty-six seconds to ensure an enjoyable experience (although I do wish for you to watch the whole thing in order to fully experience Fallon’s multi-faceted humor). 🙂

Thank You Notes: Beyoncé, Pool Chalk, W.W.J.D.

Jimmy Fallon may not be considered a true comedian due to the fact that he does not use original material and relies heavily on creating common ground between celebrities and your middle class John Doe (which in reality does not exist). Although these negative connotations against Fallon’s work should be taken into consideration when choosing what show to binge watch for the next week and a half on Netflix, I want to catch you in the moment just before you choose to move to the right of “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” so that you too might watch and experience the pure joy I do from his humor. Most importantly, I will share with you the significance and intelligence hidden within Fallon’s humor.

Six months before I left for school, my mom and I began watching “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon”. We would wait in excitement for his Friday night segment, “Thank You Notes” to come on and even accompany our waiting game with some popcorn and Pellegrino. Fallon uses this soon-to-be archaic gesture of writing thank you notes to express the often hidden thoughts and emotions experienced by nearly every twenty-first century human being. For example, he foils a high school graduation being the “best three hours of someone’s [the graduate’s] life to the worst three hours of someone else’s [the attendees’]”. Fallon uses this technique of relating to man’s life experiences in order to attract not just one audience, but rather a kingdom of onlookers who too, have experienced some of the topics in this segment. Fallon is also successful at inserting off kilter bits of humor as well. He discusses in this video clip how similar the image of a cat licking its derriére resembles the keyboard character, the ampersand used hundreds of times daily by people texting, emailing, posting, and blogging alongside the household cat, who is fed, loved on, and taken care of each day, by their owners all over the globe. In this instance, Fallon takes on two things common to nearly ninety percent of our population’s daily routine, compares them, and creates a hilarious, odd, and very true observation.

Due to Jimmy Fallon’s ability to create witty remarks on commonplace topics, he unites the population which in the past year has lead him to the top of the leader board in the world of late night television. This year at the People’s Choice Awards Fallon was voted “Favorite Late Night Talk Show Host” over Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O’Brien, Craig Ferguson, and David Letterman.

Dr. Herron, I now have one question to ask. If Fallon took a fall, would you help him up or let him AND his ego lie in the middle of the road?